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Illustration | Mia Carnevale

I have approximately 300 of them and you probably do, too

When I realized I would be writing the editorial for our Love issue, a few days before Valentine’s Day, I was less than excited. It’s not that I’m not a proponent of Love with a capital L, or even that I “hate Valentine’s Day and think it’s a baseless, purely capitalist neo-liberal holiday invented for the sole purpose of fuelling consumerism” (I do think that, of course, but that’s another story).

Photo | Augenblick Studios

Truthfully, I just wasn’t feeling it because I recently ended a long-term relationship. As you can imagine, I’m not in the best mindset to be planning romantic V-Day plans or buying people flowers. I’ve been having conversations with my friends and peers about how “love is fake!”, how nihilism is the only viable life philosophy, and how to stop U-Hauling with the first person you have even a slight connection with.

Needless to say, these conversations have not been extremely conducive to what I’m about to write; in a way, though, they have, because they were with people that I cared about. They made me realize the incredible depth of my love for… a plethora of things that aren’t a monogamous romantic partner! Of course, I’ve always known that I love my family, friends, etc., but I came to a point recently where I realized that the emotional intimacy I need and want is provided to me through many different conduits.

At the risk of sounding like a New York Times Modern Love columnist, I’d like to advance the idea that we all have an indefinite number of soulmates, not all of them human (!), who manifest themselves in different ways in our lives. I like to think of these people/places/things as my soulmates because they are often life-long while being fluctuant, often passionate and simultaneously patient. The word “soulmates” is extremely loaded with connotations of monogamy, exclusivity, and romantic love, but I believe that not only can soulmates come in any number; they can also take shape beyond the typical format of lover/lover.

Here are some examples I can think of in my life:

My close friends, the kind who I don’t have to make plans with because we always inevitably end up at each other’s houses anyways.

My baby brother, who I rarely talk to now that we live in different cities, but who will occasionally send me a video of our cat or a meme that reminds him of me.

My roommates, who I share a space with and along with that, the incredibly intimate geography of my day-to-day life, my comings and goings, and my moods.

My best friend from high school, who will always know exactly how I’m feeling in any situation, because he knows me so well.

Poetry, both reading and writing it, has been a constant in my life since I was fifteen years old, and has gotten me through a lot of shit.

The idea of being “star-crossed” with any of these things is both very meaningful and kind of irrelevant to me; does “destiny” or “fate” really matter if we’re just trying to survive and find peace and comfort in every day?

Love IS a neuro-chemical con-job and I live for it! I don’t think it’s wrong to admit that we don’t know anything about love or why we feel it or how it works, but that we still desire it and search for it everywhere. To avoid the disappointment and heartbreak that often comes with romantic love, it might be easier and more productive to find our soulmates in the small, day-to-day things.

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